In recent years, poker has become very popular. One of the most common variations of poker is the Five Card Draw poker game. In general, in Five Card Draw poker the player gets five cards dealt face up from a 52 card deck of playing cards. The player can discard none, one, a plurality or all of the five cards. Each discarded card is replaced with another card from the deck. This is called the draw. After the replacement, the cards are evaluated for winning combinations. For a five card poker game, there are ten general categories of hands, ranked from highest to lowest, as shown in Table 1 below.
TABLE 1Ranking of Five Card Poker Hands by CategoryRankNameExample1Royal Straight FlushA   K   Q   J   10  2Straight FlushK   Q   J   10   9  3Four of a KindJ   J♥ J♦ J   3  4Full HouseA♥ A♦ A   6♦ 6  5FlushA   J   8   6   2  6Straight8♦ 7   6   5   4  7Three of a KindQ   Q♥ Q♦ 6♦ 2  8Two Pair8♦ 8♥ 5♥ 5   2  9One PairK♦ K   8   7   2♥10High CardA♥ 10   7♦ 5   3  
Within each category, hands are ranked according to the rank of individual cards, with an Ace being the highest card and a two being the lowest card. There is no difference in rank between the four suits of cards. All hands can be ranked in a linear ranking from highest to lowest. Because suits are all of the same value, however, there are multiple hands that have identical rankings. For example, there are four equivalent hands for each type of straight flush, four of a kind, or flush. There are over a hundred equivalent hands for each two pair variation, and there are over 1,000 equivalent hands for each type of no-pair hand.
Numerous variations of poker exist, including Five Card Draw as mentioned above, Three Card Poker, Five Card Stud, Seven Card Stud, Hold'em (also called Texas Hold'em), Omaha (also called Omaha Hold'em), and Pai-Gow Poker. The variations in these games generally differ in the manner in which cards are dealt and in the manner and frequency in which bets are placed. Various criteria may also be used to determine the winning hand, including highest ranking hand, lowest ranking hand (Low-Ball), and where the high and low hands each win half of the pot (High-Low).
Variations of Five Card Draw such as the Deuces Wild game and the Choose Your Wild game provide the player with additional winning opportunities by enabling certain cards to act as wild cards. In the Deuces Wild game, cards with the face value two of any suit are wild and substitute for any other card in the deck. With the Choose Your Wild game, the player can nominate any face value of the 13 different face values to be wild. Cards having the nominated face value are then wild and substitute for any other card in the deck, regardless of the suit. In both of these variations, a single predetermined face value acts as a wild card during the play of the game. The wild cards in these variations substitute for any other card to provide the player with the best hand possible. Further, the wild card substitutes regardless of the position at which it is displayed. When wild cards are dealt to the player, it increases the chances of the player winning. Therefore, these games modify the pay table in order to account for the higher probability of winning. For example, some Deuces Wild games do not provide an award for a single pair and even a two pair card combination. A player has to have at least a three of a kind or better (see Table 1 above) in order to win an award.
Although these variations add excitement to the standard draw poker game play, there is typically no variation in the wild cards for each play. The wild card in these variations is typically a single preset card or multiple preset cards. Further, the wild card typically substitutes regardless of the position among the five cards, at which it is displayed. Further, upon the occurrence of a designated wild card during game play, the event that triggers is typically the substitution of that wild card for any other card to provide an enhanced opportunity for the player to win an award. The occurrence of the wild card does not guarantee that the player will win an award. Therefore, a need exists to provide additional variations in video poker games that provide wild cards to the player in a more dynamic manner and enables additional win opportunities.